What Does It Mean to Be Privacy-Focused?

Who owns your digital life? On most platforms, the answer isn’t you. Your photos, messages, connections, and interactions become assets for tech companies to analyze, package, and monetize. At OpenMeet, we believe in a different model: one where you and your community maintain sovereignty over your digital presence.

The Privacy Paradox

We all face a modern dilemma: we want to connect with others, build communities, and share experiences, but we’re increasingly aware of how our personal information is being exploited. Traditional social media platforms have turned this natural desire to connect into a business model. They track your likes, shares, locations, and relationships, building detailed profiles that they sell to advertisers. Your personal moments become their product.

Many of these platforms also track your activity across the wider internet through embedded buttons, widgets, and cookies. This tracking builds an ever-growing profile of your interests and behaviors - all to serve you more targeted advertising. All of this happens with little transparency or meaningful user control.

A Different Path

OpenMeet takes a fundamentally different approach. We believe that meaningful connections don’t require surrendering your privacy. When you use OpenMeet, your information stays on the server you choose - whether that’s your community’s server or one you host yourself. We don’t maintain a central database of all users, and we don’t track you across the internet.

Think of it like choosing a local coffee shop over a global chain. Your relationship is with your community, not with us. We provide the technology, but your community maintains control of its space and information.

Privacy Through Control

Being privacy-focused doesn’t mean being invisible. It means having control over your digital presence. When you join an OpenMeet community, you’re choosing to share certain information with specific people. You might share your interests, skills, or availability for local events. The key difference is that this information stays within your chosen community.

Your data never leaves your community’s server without your explicit consent. While we do use basic analytics to improve the platform’s usability, we don’t analyze behavior to maximize “engagement” or serve ads. Our features are focused on helping you connect with your local community - and since our code is open source, you can see exactly how these features are implemented and what data they use.

Building Trust Through Transparency

We believe privacy and transparency go hand in hand. Our code is open source, meaning anyone can inspect exactly how OpenMeet works. We’re clear about what information we need to make the platform function, and we only collect what’s necessary. No hidden analytics, no secret tracking, no surprises.

This transparency extends to our business model. We don’t need to monetize your personal information because that’s not our product - our platform is. We succeed by providing value to communities, not by exploiting their data.

Looking Forward

As digital privacy becomes increasingly important, we’re committed to showing that there’s a better way to build online communities. One where privacy isn’t a premium feature or a marketing slogan, but a fundamental design principle.

We believe that when people have true control over their information, they can build more authentic connections and stronger communities. That’s what being privacy-focused means to us - not isolation, but empowerment.